


Fool For You

by AuroraWest, Nonexistenz



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aquariums, Developing Relationship, First Dates, Fluff, Insecure Loki (Marvel), M/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Loki (Marvel), Romance, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Gestures, Romantic Loki (Marvel), Sentimental Loki, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i don't work for the georgia aquarium i swear, seriously this will give you cavities, very PG-13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28640961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraWest/pseuds/AuroraWest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/pseuds/Nonexistenz
Summary: Stephen and Loki go on their first date. Loki knows that his giddiness and sentimentality is idiotic. He doesn't care. How can he when Stephen Strange looks at him like that?
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 18
Kudos: 79
Collections: Froststrange Week 2021





	Fool For You

**Author's Note:**

> For Froststrange Week day 7: prompts aquarium date/firsts.
> 
> Art by nonexistenz to be added soon!

Loki craned his head, staring upwards as the massive shark moved smoothly and silently through the water overhead. He’d never seen anything like it, despite his one thousand and sixty years in the universe. It moved off, disappearing over rocks dappled with slow, turquoise sunlight.

“It’s a whale shark,” Stephen informed him, staring down at an informational plaque posted along the walkway. Loki had read all of them so far, but he’d stopped dead in his tracks in the glass tunnel when he’d seen the shark, too awed by it to move. Ahead of them and behind them, the screams and excited voices of school groups echoed, but the two of them were in a lull between throngs.

Rays sailed through the water alongside the shark. Those, Loki was more familiar with. They’d had them on Asgard. Extinct now, of course. All of Asgard’s species, all its plants, animals, insects, all of it, were extinct. It was a depressing thought.

Always prone to depressing thoughts, Loki was. He looked at the whale shark again, then at Stephen, leaning over the plaque and reading it—mostly for Loki’s benefit, so the two of them could talk about it. That made Loki’s heart swell. His sadness would always be with him, but his happiness sat next to it, bright and blinding. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Guardian of the New York Sanctum, human sorcerer and ridiculously, heart-poundingly beautiful man, was responsible for much of it.

Turning around, Stephen met Loki’s eyes and said, “So, the Georgia Aquarium was a good choice?”

Loki smiled slightly, stepping closer to him so that the two of them were standing side by side in front of the plaque. There was a lot of information on the shark, laid out in a way that made it easy to read for people with short attention spans. There was something to be appreciated in that, he supposed. This place made one want to learn about Earth’s oceans, which might make them less prone to destroying them. Since he’d taken up permanent residence on Earth, Loki had learned to love it—and he’d grown increasingly aware that humanity was rather short-sighted about the planet they lived on.

Then again, somehow he doubted that if Hela had been better educated about Asgard’s mollusk population, she would have decided not to take over and kill everyone.

“Yes,” Loki said. “An excellent choice.”

Stephen looked over at him, meeting his eyes. His gaze softened and Loki felt something squirm in his stomach. “Good,” Stephen said. “I figured you’d like it. But, you know. First date and everything. I wanted to get it right.”

The squirming in Loki’s stomach turned to a full explosion of butterflies. _First date._ Could two people have a first date when they’d already exchanged avowals of love? Hadn’t _that_ been the first date? Or perhaps their first date had been years ago, without either of them quite knowing it? ‘Dating’ and its technicalities weren’t really something Loki had ever considered. They’d never called it that on Asgard, where it was mostly just…courting. Or sleeping together without the courting.

For some stupid reason, Stephen calling this a first date made Loki feel shy. As though they didn’t know each other by now—as though the two of them hadn’t understood so much about each other for years. But this was…different. Loki had brought Stephen flowers; Stephen had planned this visit to the Georgia Aquarium for them. He had bought tickets, and he clearly had something else planned, though he wouldn’t say what it was. He was clearly keeping a secret that he was delighted by, and while Loki generally didn’t like secrets—at least, if he wasn’t the one keeping them—he knew Stephen was unlikely to be keeping something nefarious from him.

He craned his head up to stare at the top of the glass tunnel, suddenly not knowing what to say, feeling as though he might make a fool of himself. A sea turtle swam by slowly, the underside of its shell gleaming like the moon. The truth was that he’d probably made a fool of himself in front of Stephen so many times that it no longer even registered to him.

Or maybe… Loki looked over at him. Stephen was watching him, a look in his eyes that made warmth spread through Loki. Maybe Stephen didn’t actually find Loki foolish. Maybe he never had.

Another group of school children swarmed around them, and Loki stepped back and away from the side of the tank, allowing two young girls exclaiming over the sharks to take his place. With a smile, he looked over to Stephen, who moved away from the plaque. The two of them kept walking slowly through the aquarium tunnel. Earth _did_ have some amazing things. With all the planets he’d been to, Loki had still never seen anything like this. It was a good idea, too. A place like Xandar could easily have done it.

“How did you know I would like this?” Loki asked.

The backs of their hands brushed as they walked. Even though Loki despised the idea of showing affection in such a public place, it was hard not to reach out and slip his fingers into Stephen’s.

Stephen’s shoulder bumped against his. “Remember the time we went to the Museum of Natural History?”

“Yes.” Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “You really played tour guide quite often, didn’t you?”

Giving Loki an amused look, Stephen said, “It seemed like the decent thing to do. I had royalty living at my house.”

Royalty living at his house. Right. Through all the nine months that Loki had lived at the Sanctum, seven years ago now, the very last thing Loki had felt like was royalty. And Stephen had never seemed to care that he was. Or rather—it had never seemed to intimidate him or matter to him, in the way that people could be…odd about the fact that he was a prince. People had expectations about how a prince of Asgard was supposed to act; and they especially had expectations about what a disgraced prince of Asgard might do to regain a little bit of the gleam of his former life.

The joke was on them. Loki didn’t want it. Maybe that was what it was about Stephen—Stephen had always instinctively understood, perhaps before Loki himself had—that he didn’t miss being the Prince of Asgard.

Loki allowed his hand to brush against the back of Stephen’s again as they ambled. The excited shouts of the children behind them echoed through the tunnel, ensuring that no one would overhear their conversation. Neither of them had been recognized—at least, no one had reacted to either of them—and Loki would prefer if it stayed that way. There were three people on the planet who knew the two of them were together: Thor, Jane Foster, and Wong. That was how Loki wanted to keep it, for now, at least.

“Silly me,” Loki said. “I thought it might be because you had a bit of a thing for me back then.” Stephen shot him a crooked smile. It wasn’t agreement. But it certainly wasn’t denial, either. Raising an eyebrow, Loki asked, “So, the museum?”

“Oh yeah. Right.” Stephen looked at Loki. Norns. He would never get tired of Stephen looking at him that way. He still couldn’t quite believe it was real. Every day this week, he’d woken up and had a distinct, visceral moment where he had remembered— _Stephen and I are together now._ It had made his stomach twist into squirming, happy knots every day.

The expression Stephen’s face was doing the same thing to him now. “We stayed in the Hall of Marine Life way longer than any other gallery,” Stephen said. “You seemed more interested in it than anything else. Plus—” He shrugged. “Every time you went with me to the Chinese place to get takeout, you always hung out by the aquarium while I paid.”

At this, Loki blinked. “You noticed that?” he asked.

For just a second, Stephen looked a little embarrassed. “Um,” he said. Loki wanted to kiss him. He wasn’t going to, not here. But he desperately wanted to. His fingers brushing Loki’s, Stephen said, “Probably not that smooth to admit I couldn’t stop myself from noticing a lot of little things about you.”

“You don’t need to be ‘smooth,’ Strange,” Loki said. His smile grew the tiniest bit sharper. “That was certainly never what attracted me to you.”

With a theatrical wince, Stephen said, “Ouch. I’m guessing it wasn’t my confidence that attracted you, either? You never seemed all that appreciative of it.”

Loki’s smile got a little less sharp, a little more crooked, as he let his eyes travel over Stephen’s face, taking him in. It hit him all over again that Stephen was _his_. That he never had to look at Stephen’s mouth again and wonder how it would feel on his, never had to wonder how it would feel to hold Stephen against him; to put his hands on Stephen’s waist, to run his fingers through Stephen’s hair. These were all things he _knew_ now, and he could keep getting to know them. These were things he could do whenever he wanted to. All of it was in front of them.

There were, of course, _some_ things that he still had to imagine. He didn’t want to rush. There was no question that before too long, Loki would know every single inch of Stephen’s bare skin—but for now, there was still a _little_ mystery.

For so long, he’d wanted Stephen, unable to admit to himself just how much. And now they were here. Together. The backs of their hands brushing, Stephen smiling crookedly and looking into Loki’s eyes, Loki’s heart skipping along with a lightness that had never seemed possible for him.

“Oh,” he said nonchalantly, as though he wasn’t about to say something incredibly sentimental, “I couldn’t possibly choose just _one_ thing that attracted me to you.”

He thought of the flowers he’d brought to the Sanctum earlier, of how he’d kept looking at them sitting on the controls of his spaceship as he flew from Norway to New York and thinking how stupid he’d been to get them, that it was silly and old-fashioned and terribly, _terribly_ sentimental. But he’d grabbed them anyway when he’d gotten to New York, his hand getting sweatier around the crinkling cellophane as he walked the six blocks to the Sanctum.

Stephen’s face, surprised and delighted as Loki had handed them over, had been gratifying. And unexpected. If Loki was being honest, he’d been mildly terrified that he would arrive at the Sanctum and Stephen would do something—look at him in some way, speak to him in a way that was just a _bit_ false—that Loki would know that Stephen had thought about it and decided that they’d made a terrible mistake and he was looking for a way to extricate himself from their new…relationship. Romance. Whatever it was.

But Stephen had taken the flowers, looking like no one had ever given him something so wonderful, and he’d put his hands on either side of Loki’s face and kissed him, and—

His stomach dropped out of him at the memory. Kissing Stephen. That was it. That was all he wanted, forever.

Speaking of being sentimental.

Loki brushed his fingertips over the side of Stephen’s leg. How _daring_. But he could do that now. How many times had he fantasized about it, and now he could just…do it. With a smirk, he said, “There are at least three things I like about you, if I’m being honest.”

The whale shark swam by again. Loki stopped and turned towards the glass, watching it. Stephen stopped too, his shoulder and arm practically touching Loki’s. His fingers grazed Loki’s, and then he hooked his fingertips over the tops of Loki’s fingertips. Loki let him do it, his stomach doing something idiotic as their palms slid together and their fingers interlaced.

It was only for a second or two. As Stephen let go, he turned to face Loki and said, “I have something else planned, and I know you’re not big on surprises, so I figured I’d tell you now.”

Loki snorted. “I knew it.”

“Well, I didn’t want to hide it _too_ well,” Stephen said.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Loki arched an eyebrow and asked, “Well? What’s the big surprise, Strange?”

“Excuse me,” a voice said. Both of them looked around, then down. One of the girls that had beenexcited about sharks was standing there, staring up at Stephen. “Are you Doctor Strange?” she asked. “The Avenger?”

Loki caught Stephen’s eye and smirked slightly. He hated being lumped in with the Avengers. And he wasn’t all that good with children, either. This would be interesting.

“Uh, yes,” Stephen said.

“Where’s your magic cloak?”

With a smile that seemed remarkably not-pained, considering, Stephen replied, “It decided to stay home.”

“Why? I would bring it everywhere if I had a cool cloak that could fly.”

Her friend grabbed her arm. “Melissaaaa, come _on!_ ”

“He’s the one that does _magic_ , Janelle!”

Melissa’s friend, Janelle, looked up at Stephen. Then, she shrugged and said, “Kate Bishop is my favorite Avenger.”

“Will you do some magic now?” Her eyes turned to Loki. “Is he another wizard?”

Trying not to laugh at her enthusiasm, Loki said, “Just a friend, I’m afraid.” He knelt down and gave both of them a conspiratorial look. “If you catch him in a good mood, he does this spell that makes hundreds of tiny blue butterflies.” Melissa looked enraptured, and even the clearly less-easily-impressed Janelle seemed interested. Winking at them, he said, “I’ll see if I can talk him into it.”

A harried-looking teacher came by. “Girls, you’re supposed to be going on to the next meeting point, come on!” He shot Stephen and Loki an apologetic look and chivvied the children on, saying something like, “Well if there are Avengers here, then it’s probably their day off, and they want some time to themselves.”

Loki snorted with laughter and then grinned at Stephen. “Your expression, honestly, Strange. I’ve seen you face far greater foes with much less fear.”

“It’s not fear,” Stephen scoffed.

“Heartburn, perhaps?”

Shrugging, Stephen said, “Kids. Not really my thing.”

“It’s not as though you need to bring them home.”

With a chuckle, Stephen said, “Yeah, yeah. True.” He glanced at Loki. “You know, I had a girlfriend tell me once that a man who’s good with kids is sexy. Seemed weird at the time.”

“Are you saying you find me sexy?” Loki asked. The look Stephen gave him was very much of the _don’t-be-an-idiot_ variety. With a slight smile, he added, “I enjoy the chaos that children cause.”

“You might be the only person here who’s enjoying the decibel level of that pack of kids,” Stephen said.

Loki flashed a grin at him, thought about making a joke about having children, and then dismissed it. It _would_ be a joke, because the last thing Loki wanted right now, possibly ever, was a child that he could pass all his hang-ups to. His own upbringing had been…a challenge. He doubted his ability to overcome it.

Anyway, no matter how many years they’d been pining for each other and how fervent their confession of their love had been, you still didn’t bring up having children on a first date. Even as a joke.

“So,” he said instead. “You said you had a surprise.”

“Oh yeah. Right.” Stephen crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the side of the tank. Now that he was going to reveal his big secret, he looked a bit uncertain. But he shook himself, then said, “I booked an aquarium sleepover.”

These words, coming out of Stephen Strange’s mouth, were so incongruous that all Loki could do was stare at him, blinking. “An aquarium…sleepover?” he finally repeated.

Stephen actually looked…terrified. “Do you think that’s stupid?” he asked.

It was more than Loki didn’t know _what_ to think. What was an aquarium sleepover? _Sleeping_ here? They allowed people to do that? Had this cost extra money? Stephen didn’t have any money, so why would he spend extra on something like this? “I didn’t know such a thing existed,” he finally replied honestly. “What are we going to sleep on?”

With a relieved smile, Stephen said, “They have mats, but I borrowed some sleeping bags from Kamar-Taj.”

Loki still felt a bit befuddled. “This is very…” Very what? His mind fingered adjectives, then rejected them, until he finally settled on, “…romantic. It’s very _romantic_ of you, Stephen.”

Raising his eyebrows, Stephen replied, “You say that like you don’t expect it from me.”

“It’s not that,” Loki said. When Stephen cocked his head in question, Loki let his eyes slide away to the tank, where a ray was gliding by. Instead of answering, he shrugged and said, “Let’s go see the penguins.”

When Loki started to move away, one of Stephen’s arms twitched towards him. Though he didn’t actually touch Loki, he may as well have put his hand around Loki’s arm. Loki stopped and Stephen asked, “Would you rather not do the sleepover thing?”

“Stephen.” Loki held his eyes, hoping he was conveying that if another school group wasn’t streaming past them currently, if they weren’t in a major tourist attraction, surrounded by people who very possibly knew exactly who they were, that he would be lowering his lips to Stephen’s and kissing him. “I think it’s…wonderful.” Much more quietly, he added, “Much like you.”

The look Stephen gave him back suggested that he understood Loki’s unspoken desire, and that he returned it just as fervidly.

He wondered how many other people would be around during this sleepover. It was going to be very difficult not to kiss Stephen if they were sleeping next to each other all night.

The two of them continued through the aquarium, visiting each gallery in turn. Even though Loki was quite sure Stephen’s interest in all of this was limited, he never gave any indication that he was bored. He seemed, actually, entirely taken by Loki’s enthusiasm, and that was a feeling that Loki had certainly never experienced. The number of healthy romantic relationships that Loki had experienced was…pretty close to zero, so there had never been someone who had been interested both in sleeping with him and in seeing him enjoying his interests.

That was a bit sad, when put so bluntly.

They ate dinner at the aquarium café, which was serviceable but nothing special. At least, the food was nothing special. It was the first time Loki and Stephen had eaten dinner together as a couple. Gods. Loki felt like an adolescent. He was eating a veggie burger and Stephen was eating chicken tenders, with drinks they’d filled themselves out of a fountain machine, and somehow it was the most romantic dinner he’d ever had. Stephen’s knee pressed against Loki’s under the table and he leaned forward like he couldn’t stand that the table top had put a couple feet of space between them.

In other words, Loki could have been eating just the ketchup packets that had been provided to him on his tray, and he would have been happier than he’d ever been in his life.

When the aquarium closed to everyone but sleepover guests, they made their way through the lobby, with its shifting lights, clearly meant to imitate sunlight shining through water. There were half spheres hung from the ceiling at different heights and tiers of lights that serpentined over the wall. As they walked across the space, the group of schoolchildren from earlier caught Loki’s eye. They were walking towards the doors, their energy vastly depleted from earlier, but the two girls that had talked to Stephen and Loki still spotted them.

Loki elbowed Stephen and nodded towards them. With a glance at Loki and a tiny smile on his face, Stephen made a discrete gesture with his hands. Suddenly, thousands of blue butterflies burst from within the half-spheres, swirling in a bright blue stream across the ceiling and amongst the children, whose delighted shrieks made their teachers wilt. The butterflies flitted, azure and lapis, iridescent, bobbing on air currents, until they turned to wisps of light and disappeared.

It was the less easily impressed of the two girls who shot Loki and Stephen a huge smile and a thumbs up. As the group made their way out through the aquarium’s doors, Loki turned to Stephen and smiled crookedly at him. “I thought you didn’t like children?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Returning the smile, Stephen said, “I like making you smile, Odinson. If I have to make some kids happy, so be it.”

“Mm, yes. Tragic that it required that.” No kissing. _No kissing._ Honestly. It was just so _difficult_ when Stephen was looking at him the way he was, which Loki couldn’t describe in any other way besides ‘besotted.’ If Loki didn’t want people knowing the two of them were together, then they both needed to tone down the soppy gazing at each other. The problem was, that seemed impossible.

After Stephen checked in, they went on the tours that were included with the sleepover, and eventually, the two of them were led to one of the galleries that faced the large tank with the whale shark. Rules were read to them, they both nodded along and agreed, and then they were left…alone.

Loki looked around. “Shouldn’t there be other people here?” he asked.

Stephen looked immensely satisfied with himself. “Nope. We get the whole gallery to ourselves.”

Furrowing his brow, Loki asked, “How? Did you buy all the tickets?” This seemed as though it would have been exorbitantly expensive.

Still looking enormously pleased, Stephen said, “I might have played the Sorcerer Supreme card.”

“No one knows what the Sorcerer Supreme does.”

“Okay, fine. I said I was an Avenger.” No doubt at the gleeful expression on Loki’s face, he said, “Hey, if people are going to say it anyway, I might as well get some benefit out of it.”

“I don’t see any other reason to admit to it,” Loki agreed, still grinning.

“See, ‘admitting’—that implies that I _am_ an Avenger, but just won’t say it.”

Loki pursed his lips.

With a snort, Stephen shook his head. “Okay, okay, very funny. Any time you want to go back to saying this is really romantic is good with me, by the way.” He smacked the backs of his fingers lightly against Loki’s chest, which both of them turned their eyes to the moment he did it.

They looked at each other. And then, without quite knowing how they got there or who moved first, Loki found himself kissing Stephen hard, his hands cupped around Stephen’s face as Stephen curled his fingers around the back of Loki’s head. Loki had the presence of mind to cast an illusion over them a split second before their lips met because he really, _really_ didn’t need grainy security camera footage of them leaking to paparazzi. But he desperately _did_ need to kiss Stephen.

No one had ever kissed him like Stephen kissed him. Admittedly, most of the people that Loki had kissed in the past had mostly been interested in kissing as prelude to something else. But Stephen—the kissing, and how good it felt, seemed an end unto itself. Which was to say, Loki could stand there forever, Stephen’s mouth open to his, their hands on each other, as they learned every inch of each other’s lips. And, er, tongues. Loki was very interested in discovering the precise feel of Stephen’s tongue.

When they finally separated, Stephen’s eyes remained closed. Loki drank in the sight of him, unable to escape the knowledge that somehow, unbelievably, he was the cause of the…the _joy_ on Stephen’s face.

Stephen’s eyes opened, and then, wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around Loki’s back and pulled him close. Loki buried his nose in Stephen’s hair and breathed in his scent, his shampoo that smelled like sandalwood, the cologne he had definitely put on today, cedar and faintly citrusy. Norns, he smelled good.

Loki tightened his arms around Stephen and kissed the side of his head softly, and the two of them stood that way for several minutes. Finally, though, Stephen said, “I should probably get those sleeping bags.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed, though he didn’t move. He had discovered that he liked the feel of Stephen’s shoulders, and was tracing his fingers along them.

“I’m going to do that,” Stephen said. Unconvincingly, it had to be said. His face was pressed into Loki’s shoulder, one of his hands was in Loki’s hair, and the other was running up and down his back.

“Mm hm.” If he was honest with himself—which was, admittedly, a challenge—then Loki could admit that he’d been fantasizing about doing this for years, imagining what it would feel like to hold Stephen against him, to feel his realness, his solid warmth. The reality was…well, _better_ didn’t do it justice. _Better_ implied that his imagined version of it had been sort of close to the real thing. But it hadn’t been. He hadn’t been close at all. There had been no way to imagine how wonderful this would be.

He knew that this giddiness, this out-of-control sentimentality, was completely idiotic. He didn’t care.

Stephen chuckled, squeezed Loki tighter for a moment, and stepped back. “Let’s hold this thought,” he said. When Loki sighed theatrically, he grinned crookedly, then pulled his sling ring from a pocket, opened a portal, and stepped through. He left the portal open, so Loki was able to watch him bound up the stairs in the Sanctum’s foyer, until he disappeared from sight.

Well, as long as Stephen was doing something useful, Loki supposed he should, as well. He quickly located each of the security cameras in the room and nudged their views ever so slightly, so that there was a space that wasn’t being filmed. Illusions were fine, but he’d fall asleep at some point, and the spell would probably fail. This was more foolproof.

The gallery was quiet as he waited, bathed in bluish light, watching the fish swim by. The only sound was Stephen’s portal, still spinning behind him. Then, footsteps clattered on the Sanctum’s stairs, and Loki turned around to see Stephen coming down them, two tightly-rolled sleeping bags under his arms and a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. The sight of him, even though he’d only been gone for five minutes at most, made butterflies explode in Loki’s stomach.

Loki took the sleeping bags from Stephen and undid the ties on them, which were knotted far too tightly for Stephen to loosen. Then, he unrolled them in the camera dead spot he’d created, right in front of the aquarium so they would have a nice view of the fish and sharks and rays gliding by silently. “Did anyone at Kamar-Taj ask you why you needed these?” he asked as he smoothed them out.

There was a small smile on Stephen’s face as he watched Loki, the kind of smile that people got when they were watching someone they loved, regardless of what mundane thing that person was doing. When Loki raised his eyebrows, Stephen stuck his hands in his pockets and said, “Yeah, Karl didn’t believe me when I said I was going camping. He laughed, actually.” With a sigh, he said, “They don’t laugh at my actual _jokes_ but the idea of me camping is hilarious.”

“Well,” Loki said. When Stephen shot a look at him, he grinned, plopping down on his backside, drawing his knees up, and resting his wrists across them. “Did you hold to that story?”

As Stephen knelt, unzipping the duffel bang, he said, “Yeah, and then I had to get Wong to swear he’d back me up.”

“What did you promise him?”

“I’ll be making deli runs for the next month.”

Loki laughed. Maybe none of the other Masters thought Stephen was funny, but Loki had always found his sense of humor addictive, sly and surprising, and perfectly suited to Loki’s own.

Pushing the duffel bag towards Loki, Stephen said, “I wasn’t sure what you like to sleep in so I brought a few different things.”

This made Loki arch an eyebrow. “Your clothes? How intimate.”

“Is that okay?” Stephen asked. “If it’s not, I’ll just go to New Asgard and get your stuff.”

He didn’t deserve this man. “It’s fine,” Loki said. He pulled out a pair of flannel pants and a sweatshirt from the bag, resisting the temptation to bury his nose in the fabric. “Perfectly fine,” he added, just to be sure Stephen knew he meant it.

There were other things in the bag—a change of clothes for tomorrow, toothbrushes, toothpaste, some over-the-counter medications. When Stephen went to the bathroom to change, Loki snooped more thoroughly. Razor blade, shaving cream, nail clippers, a little bottle of mouthwash, a bottle of cologne. Loki decided to pop the cap open and smell that, then tried to tell himself that the feeling that washed over him could be described in some other way than ‘a swoon.’ There was nothing in the bag that implied Stephen thought they’d be doing anything tonight but sleeping.

There was an odd, contradictory sense of relief and disappointment at this discovery. On one hand, he wanted to wait at least a few weeks, and they were in the middle of a public place, even if he _had_ fiddled with the security cameras to give them privacy. If Stephen hadn’t understood that this wasn’t the time or place for that, it would have been a sign that he didn’t understand Loki as well as Loki thought he did.

And on the other hand, Loki wanted very much to have sex with Stephen.

For a moment, he let himself think about what it would be like when they did, and that quite occupied his imagination until Stephen returned, at which point Loki wondered if propriety demanded that he hide the evidence of what he’d been thinking. In the end he sort of half tried, but he also thought Stephen might have noticed.

Changed and ready for bed, they crawled into the sleeping bags. Loki wondered if he should zip his up. Exactly how chaste did Stephen think they should be, here? Because Loki, quite honestly, wanted to fall asleep with his arms wrapped around Stephen and their legs tangled together. He wanted to feel Stephen breathing. He wanted to kiss him until he passed out.

Stephen looked at the foot of empty space separating the two sleeping bags, then glanced up at Loki. “Are you comfortable with…” he began, then trailed off, before trying again, “I mean, do you want to be…further away…?”

“Do you?” Loki asked. When Stephen hesitated, Loki took a guess about what the honest answer was, then reached out and tugged Stephen’s sleeping bag until it was right next to his. The brightness of Stephen’s smile told him he’d guessed right. And since he’d been right about that, he decided to take a chance on the rest of it.

When he reached for Stephen, putting a hand on his hip, Stephen sighed and scooted closer, putting an arm around Loki and pulling him close. Loki hooked his arm around Stephen’s waist and slowly, softly, they kissed each other. The gallery was silent except for the sound of Loki’s heartbeat pounding in his ears and the occasional sigh from each of them.

Stephen’s lips were so soft. He kissed Loki like they had all the time in the world. He kissed Loki like Loki _mattered_. And his hands moved over Loki’s body in a way that made it quite clear that whatever fantasies Loki had, Stephen had them too. But they both stayed over the clothes and above the waist. Still. The way Stephen traced his fingers across Loki’s chest, up and down his arms; the way his hands molded into Loki’s waist and tugged his hips forward—well, when they decided it _wouldn’t_ be over the clothes and above the waist, it was obvious that Stephen would want it just as much as Loki did. There was hunger in his kiss to match Loki’s own.

Eventually, they drew apart, and Loki couldn’t help suspecting it had something to do with the way Stephen seemed to be keeping his hips pulled back just a little. Temptation. If Loki reached down…

But no. Instead, he very deliberately folded an arm under his head, resting his head on his bicep. Stephen did something that looked like it was probably a clothing or anatomy adjustment to accommodate a _situation_ , but Loki didn’t comment. Quite honesty, he had his own situation down there, and it just felt like good manners not to say anything.

Neither of them spoke for a minute or two. They simply stared at each other. Then, Stephen said gently, “I know you’re worried.”

“Worried?” Loki raised an eyebrow. “What do you think I’m worried about?”

Stephen’s gaze didn’t waver. “This.” When Loki pressed his lips together, Stephen added, “You think I’m going to change my mind. Right?”

Shifting his head on his arm, Loki gave an awkward shrug. “Knowing you, my insecurity was one of the first things you noted about me.”

One of Stephen’s hands tucked a strand of hair behind Loki’s ear. “I’m not totally sure if you’re expecting a response to that.” Loki snorted and Stephen smiled. “What were you going to say earlier? When you commented that this seemed like a romantic gesture, and I asked if you didn’t expect it from me?”

Loki’s eyebrows drew together as he looked at Stephen’s face, his beautiful eyes, the way his hair flopped over his forehead, those cheekbones that he just wanted to trace with a thumb over and over. Finally, he said, “It’s not _you_ , specifically, that I don’t expect it from. It’s…” He pressed his lips together and let out a breath. “It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that the number of normal romantic relationships I’ve had is…negligible.”

A smile pulled at Stephen’s mouth. “You’re a space Viking and I’m a Master of the Mystic Arts. I’m not sure this is exactly going to be normal, either.”

There was something nice about the fact that Stephen didn’t use their titles. They weren’t _just_ a space Viking and a Master of the Mystic Arts—they were the Prince of New Asgard, the God of Mischief, and the Sorcerer Supreme. Loki reached out and ran his fingers over Stephen’s face. Stephen’s cheekbones really did something to him. “Perhaps the better word is ‘healthy.’ The number of _healthy_ romantic relationships I’ve had is negligible.” He chewed at the inside of his cheek, then added, “The reasons are myriad, of course. I’ve made poor choices. But yes. In part, it’s because I’m…challenging. And people change their minds.”

Stephen’s hand cupped Loki’s cheek. “I’m not going to.”

Covering Stephen’s hand with his, feeling his scars against his palm, Loki said, “I’m sure you feel that way now, and—” And any amount of time with Stephen Strange was a gift, even if he decided in a few months this had been a terrible mistake. But Loki was greedy. He didn’t want to say in a few months, or a few years, _This was great while it lasted_. He would already have to give it up too soon, because he would outlive Stephen by such a long time. And he already knew there would never be anyone else.

Stephen leaned forward and kissed Loki softly; the most tender, most heartfelt kiss Loki had ever experienced. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, his lips warm against Loki’s.

It was difficult not to deepen the kiss, difficult not to kiss Stephen harder. He’d never needed anything to be true as much as he needed this to be true, or at least it felt like it. _Don’t worry._ But Loki always worried. All the good things in his life still felt so fragile, as though they could implode at any moment.

Though—he supposed he was getting better at not actively sabotaging them himself.

“I love you,” Loki said, curling his fingertips between Stephen’s so their hands were intertwined. For years, these words had been impossible to admit the truth of, much less say out loud, and now all Loki wanted to do was say them. His arm slid around Stephen’s back.

Stephen squirmed closer and breathed, “I love you too.”

Suddenly, a bright, wild happiness surged through Loki and all he could do was laugh. He didn’t think this about his own life very often, but this was…perfect. It was perfect.

With a grin, he pulled the sleeping bag over both their heads, leaned in, and kissed Stephen. You only got one first date, especially one as perfect as this. Loki was going to enjoy it.


End file.
